Which isn’t a lot – a single fab can cost more than the entire subsidy pool. India wants four built soon

India has unveiled a $10bn subsidy scheme designed to lure semiconductor manufacturers to its shores.

The new “India Semiconductor Mission” (ISM) targets entities seeking to establish “Silicon Semiconductor Fabs, Display Fabs, Compound Semiconductors / Silicon Photonics / Sensors (including MEMS) Fabs, Semiconductor Packaging (ATMP / OSAT), Semiconductor Design.”

The Rs.76000 crore ($9.96bn) Mission offers construction subsidies for organisations willing to build the above in India. Fabs and design initiatives can receive up to 50 percent subsidies for their activities. Other semiconductor industries will receive smaller rebates.

India’s subsidies may not buy it a lot: Samsung is spending $17bn on a single fab in Texas, Intel has commenced a $20b expansion of its Arizona facilities and TSMC has flagged capital expenditure approaching $100bn to expand its manufacturing capacity.

The scheme nonetheless envisages attracting at least two greenfield semiconductor Fabs and two display fabs in the country, 15 semiconductor packaging facilities, and assistance to 100 domestic semiconductor design companies, of which 20 are expected to achieve annual revenue of $200m in the next five years.

Again, those targets seem brave as India does not currently possess an enormous pool of silicon design talent and recent domestic silicon designs include modest RISC-V processors built on a 180-nanometre process. While India has shown it can quickly grow services industries, and has a renowned technical education sector, there’s a lot of work required to become a player. 

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said the new scheme furthers the nation’s “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” self-sufficiency plan and will “position India as global hub for electronics manufacturing with semiconductors as the foundational building block.” ®

https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/16/india_semiconductor_mission/